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FTW84LA093 · Vickers TYPE 668 VARSITY TYPE 668 V

11 Dec 1983 · El Paso, TX, United States

Vickers TYPE 668 VARSITY TYPE 668 V · Accident: hard landing

From El Paso International Airport (ELP) to an unrecorded destination

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Event

NTSB case
FTW84LA093
Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
Accident
InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
Completed
API-reported fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
0
OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
General aviation
WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
Visual Meteorological Cond

Vickers TYPE 668 VARSITY TYPE 668 V

Aircraft type
Vickers TYPE 668
Category
Airplane
RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
N65338
Operator
Unknown
Onboard fatalities
Unknown
Route
From El Paso International Airport (ELP), El Paso, TXTo not recorded
Aircraft age
Not recorded
Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
Part 91: General Aviation
Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
Landing · flare/touchdown
First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
Hard landing
DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
Substantial

Cause areas

  • Pilot in command › Inadequate initial training
  • Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
  • Pilot in command › Lack of total experience in type of aircraft
  • Pilot in command › Level off, misjudged
  • Pilot in command › Overconfidence in personal ability
  • Pilot in command › Proper alignment, not attained
  • Pilot in command › Unsuitable terrain or takeoff/landing/taxi area, selected

Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.

NTSB narrative

THE ACFT WAS ON A FLT FROM THE EL PASO INTL ARPT TO THE WEST TEXAS ARPT. A HARD LANDING WAS MADE CAUSING ALL THREE LANDING GEAR TO COLLAPSE, FOLDED THE LEFT WING AFT JUST INBOARD OF THE ENG & TWISTED THE ENTIRE RIGHT WING ABOUT 30 DEG LEADING EDGE DOWN. ACCORDING TO THE PLT THE ACFT WAS FLOWN WITH 30 DEG OF FLAPS ON DOWNWIND & 47 DEG OF FLAPS ON BASE. HE ALSO REPORTED THAT BOTH AIRSPEED INDICATORS WERE STUCK AT 110 KTS. ACCORDING TO PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY AN UNIDENTIFIED PARTY, THE FLAPS WERE IN THE UP POSITION IN THE PATTERN & DURING TOUCHDOWN. TOUCHDOWN WAS MADE WITH THE RIGHT MAIN GEAR OFF THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RWY. THE ACFT WHEEL TRACK IS ONLY 4 FT LESS THAN THE WIDTH OF THE RWY. THE PLT DID NOT HAVE A TYPE RATING NOR AUTHORIZATION IN LIEU OF A TYPE RATING FOR THE 15 MIN FERRY FLT. THE PLT HAD 4140 HRS CO-PLT TIME IN THEACFT, DURING WHICH HE HAD NEVER LANDED THE ACFT.

Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset

Sources

NTSB record FTW84LA093
Event ID
20001214X45300
Case number
FTW84LA093
Dataset
historical-pre2008
Source SHA-256
89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
  • Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
  • Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
  • The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
  • API snapshot SHA-256: 26926778c646093b63b9f01a4baf66f6ef9ea6ff584519d4cf74108636024175; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:02:18.103Z.